Midsummer Already???

36 degrees in the shade today. About time I say. But hopefully not for too long.
Fan's on in the bedroom at night to try to get some air moving through the place.



Midsummers Eve and the Supermoon event have come and gone already so I suppose we are heading for autumn now. 

We spent Midsummer's Eve at friends Judy and Nigel's house and the view from their window of the mountains was stunning (Fraser has a new camera by the way!)

Big events this month were:
 #1.  Sylvi hitting 64 (cue photo and Beatles song)...

#2.  Boules and Darts rematches...over 40 people came this year..all went a bit viral with the invitations but a good time had by all.

 

 The team from Sta Ovaia walked off with BOTH trophies this year!

 Second division teams for darts and boules were a mixed bunch!

Thanks everyone for coming and making it a fun day and to Steve and Jo for doing the BBQ!

 

The kids did some great painting during the evening and off their own bat decided to hold an exhibition the next day to 'sell' their paintings. It was a sellout!!!!

#3.  The reappearance of our turtle in the pond..much bigger now. It has been named Trixi by Julia the daughter of Fraser's Argentinian webpal Diego and the naming accompanied by a picture!!! Thank you Julia, the picture is a masterpiece. 

So  Trixi it is.

#4. Fraser finished the new back exit staircase, complete with new trellis ready to plant something there to climb up it...maybe next year though!

 #5. Our biggest surprise this month though was discovering that our 'empty' wren's nest was, in fact, occupied with two tiny hatchlings! We have spent a wonderful two to three weeks watching mum wren frantically feeding them and sadly they have now fledged. We really miss them!

Bugsy has been having a great time encountering some of our resident snakes in the garden and in the field but he missed this one...one of the watersnakes sunning himself on the top pond. And the little skink on the right had great problems crossing the tiles on the back patio.

 
The wild flower planting around the new fruit trees seems to have paid off and it is great to be over there listening to the mad hum of bees. It looks great too so we shall be continuing to develop more patches next year. Sadly we lost all the blossom from our plums, peaches and nectarine this year but it looks like we are going to have shedloads of apples. 

Having seen the photos of herself at the boules and darts day, Sylvi has decided to go on the major diet and lose 10 kilos in 10 weeks! Yikes!!!!
Seems to be on target since she has already lost 2! Adela has been helping sending short daily routine yoga videos for the fat and unfit!! 
Scraps is going for an xray on her hips on Monday but in the meantime has been joining in with Sylvi on the yoga front!

 Our good friend Crispin left Portugal this month to travel back to the States and seek his fortune there. We all will miss him but hope he has a brilliant time there and that his wish to buy a bike (motorbike of course) and travel the States comes to fruition!

 Finally, Sylvi is going back to the UK in a couple of weeks to look after this little lady. Leaving Fraser to take care of the ranch.

We hope you are having some better weather, wherever you are and that the next month is a sunnier one for you all.
 



Leaving you with this incredible cloud formation that entertained us the other evening while we were outside having dinner.

And then came the sun....and the repairs

Now I know that many of you reading this will be in parts of the world where spring has just been non-existent so far. It did come here for a few days at the start of the month and the garden went ballistic, putting up the roses and clematis with blossoms twice their normal size and weeds the size of small town buildings. And then the rain came again and we plumetted to 4 degrees in the mornings. So, having cleaned out the log burners and given them their once a year blacking and polishing, we gave in and had fires for a week to keep the damp at bay.

The view from our second terrace back to the house, taken on the gardening day by Gerrit.

But just before the rain on the first Thursday of the month we had a load of people from our local gardening group ('Beiras Grass Roots') visit to see what we are doing with our patch to try to create a bit more bio-diversity and habitiats for wildlife.  
They are mainly interested Dutch, Belgian and British expats who meet up once a month and over coffee and cake swap plants, seeds and ideas. 
They also wanted to hear about what we are doing to try and identify the wild flowers around here and sowing more wild flowers each year. 
It was a bit intimidating because I am not a 'gardener' and what we do kind of happens by accident...you do something and a space appears and you think...'hmmm what can we put there' and if it survives all well and good. Likewise if a 'weed/wildflower' happens to be pretty and grow in alongside everthing else then it stays.

We put up the patio awning because the sun actually came out!

So I talked to them abour our 'serendipity garden' and plans to replant the terraces and fields with different varieties of trees and hardy shrubs,so along with the ponds and the slow return to natural growth someone in about 50 years will think we have done a good job.
Anyway it was a good morning and very relaxed and everyone had a good wander around and had lots of nice things to say which was pleasing. A few friends stayed on for lunch too so it was a nice day altogether.

Checking out the fenced off loose tongued orchids!

After the rainy and cold week we decided that we had to sort out the damp coming into the kitchen from the empty goatshed next to the house. 

Water soaks through the wall of the shed and then the damp inside permeates the house. So Steve, dug a trench and Ness and Fraser cleared the debris to see what was happening.
It turned out that there were several holes in the wall below the surface and to add to our problems the down pipe from the gutter was also leaking and just went into the ground!
So the holes were rendered, the trench was lined with pond liner up to the surface and gravel in the base, angled towards the down steps to the next terrace flower bed and then filled back up. 4 hours later you couldn't tell the difference, except that the gutter pipe now runs across the tiled top and onto the flower bed below! 

Great job!

The next day I cleared out the mess inside the shed. Steve and Fraser had already ripped out the manger on the back wall and now it is just a case of allowing the inside of the shed to dry before we render and damp proof the right hand corner and wall to the house.

Meanwhile Fraser decided it was time to rebuild our back staircase to the house which, after 9 years needed a lot of TLC.

Original build and...... 9 years later it all had to come down!       

New platform frame done!

But this time he is changing the layout of the steps and the platform supports and stairs are held off the ground by rebar spikes to prevent rot. 

Now waiting for the cement to set off and we have to organise new stairs. The platform is going to be done with the residue of our composite plastic decking.
So watch this space for how it finally all comes together!

Fraser has re-tied our wild and wavy fence with new willow and we have added a few more interesting bits of driftwood from the river beach.
 
And we aren't the only ones who have been busy. One of our resident male wrens has been frantically building nests for his female to choose from. This one wasn't chosen sadly, probably because it is outside our utility room so just a bit too busy for her liking. Shame...it would have been nice to have them there.


My two drawing classes continue and if you are interested in taking a look at how they are doing you can click on the link below our header 'Drawing Diaries'.

 The biggest pleasure this month? Sitting outside at last, on the kitchen patio early evening on some days, overwhelmed by the smell of jasmine and honeysuckle with a glass of wine or other relevant alcoholic beverage of our choice. YESSSS! Maybe summer is here at last!

CHEERS. HAPPY BANK HOLIDAY WEEKEND!

Changeable April

April has certaily been less than kind. The rains continued, then it got hot and now, right at the end of the month, there was ice on the windshield of the Honda this morning and we've had a couple of days of frosts. We'd put the summer weight bedding on the bed, cleaned out the woodburners...OK, that was probably asking for it! There'll be a fire in the livingroom stove tonight....It's only about 16C in the house today. 12C outside at noon. Weird stuff this global warming.

We also had some very high winds which were worrying as there was a very tall, dead pine just across the road from the house, waving about in the wind, not flexing at all. Amandeo, who owns that bit of forest got a couple of foresters to drop it, controlling the fall with a cable to a tractor - off at a safe distance!

 

Neat job.

During the warm bit we had our first BBQ of the year on my birthday...

Well smoked Chicken...

Nice to be able to eat outside again. I turned 66 and the track up to the house got a tiny bit steeper..

(Still lookin' good though Sx)

This is the time of year when there is the most work to be done and the sun finally brought on the early garden colour.

Having had so much rain the long-delayed clear up was needed...but we got stuck in at last and the land has had a haircut, except for the patches that still have wild flowers. Took 4 of us a day to get this far.

The water feature has had its annual clear out and we have added a water lily to make it a bit more colourful this year. Now need to add gambusia (mosquito fish) to eat the inevitable influx of mosquito larvae.

Meanwhile, there are Irises up all over the place!

I have been using them to brush up on my botanical illustration skills, such as they are!

Sylvi has started to collate an on-line catalogue of the wildflowers that we find here on the land and in the woods. Early days and she isn't a professional at identifying what they are, but you can see her first attempt on a local gardener's group blog here

Neighbour Antonio pitched up to rotavate the field he'd earlier ploughed. Hit the soft bit and went in nearly up to his axles, but still managed to complete the job, avoiding a repeat run through the wet spot... 

Sylvi has been sowing wildflowers, Sunflowers and planting cabbages in the nice soft ground.

We planted a few more trees today too, including two Sequoias which might give someone a headache - in a few hundred years!

Hope that the weather wherever you are is improving.....tonight we are freezing our butts off so..........off to light the fire.